Andrew comments on neoconservatives and Obama:

To think that these hateful nutcases are taken seriously in Washington reveals just how skewed our foreign policy is. Obama is trying to move past it – for the sake of America and Israel – but he was checkmated in his first term. One powerful reason to re-elect him is that he can try again.

There’s no question that our foreign policy is skewed very badly, and neoconservatives are a significant part of the reason why that is so, but the “powerful reason” to re-elect Obama would be to deny the Presidency to the likely nominee who is surrounded by advisers drawn from their ranks. There isn’t much reason to expect that Obama’s second term would be substantively better on foreign policy than his first term was. If he was “checkmated” in the first term, he will continue to be stymied in the second. Even if neoconservative critics cannot or will not acknowledge it, administration policy towards Iran has become increasingly confrontational, and almost everything that distinguished Obama on foreign policy has disappeared.

Unfortunately, as I have been saying for some time now, the substantive differences between Romney and Obama on many foreign policy issues are few, and their respective Iran policies are virtually indistinguishable. That isn’t an argument for Obama, nor is it a “powerful” reason to support his re-election. It is little more than a “lesser of two evils” argument. That’s fine as far as it goes, but it doesn’t say much for Obama. He may have been “checkmated” on some issues by opposition at home, but it doesn’t change the reality that Obama has been actively contributing to the skewing of U.S. foreign policy through continued militarization and the strengthening of the imperial Presidency. The main argument in his favor is that his likely replacement would be far worse.